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The Illinois Supreme Court will weigh in on the question of whether Illinois law can constitutionally exempt hospitals from paying property taxes, and whether the city of Chicago can use curfew laws to keep protesters out of Grant Park over night.

Saying the Chicago city residents who brought the legal action can’t prove they were injured by lead in their water and arguing the lawsuit comes directly against the city’s rights under the law to set its own governmental policy, Chicago city attorneys have asked the court to toss a class action demanding the court order the city to replace lead water pipes leading to homes throughout the city and pay for medical monitoring for a large number of Chicagoans who may have been exposed to lead.

Three weeks since filing suit to ask a Cook County judge to order Illinois’ state government to pay their organizations what they believe they are owed, a coalition that has now grown to more than 80 Illinois social service agencies have decided the situation has now become a “public emergency across the state” requiring emergency action from the courts to order Springfield to cough up the money to allow the agencies to continue functioning.

The publishers of a baseball magazine still haven’t connected in their fight for the right to sell their product on the sidewalk outside of Chicago’s Wrigley Field.But a federal appeals panel said arguments raised by Left Field Media did deliver a strike in questioning why even the Chicago Cubs organization itself should be allowed under the city’s rules to sell things on the sidewalks outside the Friendly Confines.

Faced with the possibility the class action lawsuit could be transferred to a court more than 2,000 miles away in the Pacific Northwest, the lawyers suing online attorney directory Avvo have swapped in a different Chicago attorney, who also is the son of a once-powerful Chicago alderman, to replace the original named plaintiff, whose history with Avvo could have triggered provisions in Avvo’s user agreement, which could have kicked the case to a federal court in Seattle.

CHICAGO – Lawful taxation — and the avoidance of such — is at the heart of an action taken Monday by Cook County Circuit Judge James Snyder, who dismissed more than 200 third-party lawsuits filed to collect sales tax on liquor sold to residents of Illinois from retailers elsewhere.

Employers can still ask employees to sign contracts sending disputes over overtime or other wage and hour issues to arbitration, bypassing the courts. But a federal appeals panel in Chicago said any attempts to force employees to sign such agreements as a condition of employment violates federal law, leaving such contracts unenforceable.

The grass is fake, but the legal dispute over who should own the rights to sell and install artificial turf in stadiums and practice facilities in Chicago – including at the Chicago Bears practice facility – is quite real.